Lost
in Time
"We're half in the
future and half back here" Michael
said and looked deeply into Laura's eyes for any sign of recognition. "How
do you know?" Laura looked right back at him. "I see it. I see it
happening. I almost see why!"
Michael turned as he spoke and
continued in an angry voice, "and I don't like it. I don't like being
someone's toy, pushed into a place and time I have no choice about, no
understanding. It makes me feel weak and
helpless and I've decided to stop it.". "How", Laura asked as if
they were planning an evening's observation schedule. "I can get us out.
I've thought it out carefully. You know what happens in these dreams? He waited
for her reply. "What?" "They take us forward in time and to a
different place, but the transit is vulnerable. I noticed it last time and I
remembered it and I remembered it because I made a large number of associations
for when we were back here that would remind me, and I remembered. The
orientation changes". Laura was listening intently. It was as if they were
French underground conspiring against the Nazis. Michael went on.
"Ordinarily, now, my whole life,
usually, I relate most of my experience to my youth, school, growing up,
my first telescope, you know". Laura nodded. "When we're in transit,
there's none of that, just Chile, just here at the observatory or at
Schechter's, or on the road, or somewhere around here. The job." They
called their current research "the job". "And I noticed it.
Every time I notice it." Laura started to make coffee as Michael continued
excitedly. "I know how we can break out. I'm sure of it. All we have to do
is know when we're in transit and then talk about it and we'll wake up!"
He just about smiled the way he did when he'd solved a math puzzle. He looked
at her for her view of all this. She handed him a cup of coffee . "It
makes me want to smoke a cigarette and I never smoke." She laughed and so
did Michael. "I don't know. Break out? What do you mean?" "Just
wake up out of it, force ourselves to wake up!" "How in heaven are we
supposed to do that?" Michael smiled at the question. "Exactly"
he answered. "All we do is rehearse a few lines until we recognize where
we are and come to." He smiled like a contented cat.
Four hours and as many cups
of coffee later they were still sitting at the kitchen table going over their
lines. "Then I say, "are you ready Laura?" "And you
say.." and Laura broke in. "I sure am." Michael smiled.
"That's all there is to it". He saw how tired she looked. "It'll
be alright". That was Michael, she thought. He gets a plan and follows it.
She hoped he was right. He usually was, but who knew what to expect anymore.
That night Laura actually
feared falling asleep. She tried to keep her mind occupied with their research
and the next day's programs. In what seemed like the instant she dozed off, she
woke suddenly in the windowless room, same bed, same ceiling, and the same
strange feeling of being in a place that seemed like a solidified dream. "Michael!" she called out. "I'm
here" he answered. "Let's get out of here right now". He was
awake already and aware of where they were. It was time to jump on this. "Change
of plans?" Laura asked. "Yeah - we're actually home I think, but we
can't see it" Michael was trying to understand what was going on and
couldn't quite bracket the situation. "See if you can reach out and touch
the lamp on your night table - you know - the guy on the horse." The
silver toreador?" she asked. "Yeah, that guy - it's just a hunch." Laura had no idea
what to do. "You mean imagine it?" "No do it", he shouted.
"Do it - I'm in the next room - I'm here in the next room", he
insisted. She reached out and somehow managed to touch a lamp - a lamp that
wasn't visibly in the room. She could almost hear a warning. "You'll get
in trouble. You'll get lost!"...Suddenly, like a tornado touching down. it
seemed like everything that existed was moving, spinning with hardly any
pattern to focus on except a downward winding inner funnel that seemed darker
than the gray and pale light of the confusion. The sound was deafening, as loud
as close thunder and all the worse for loud, frozen, high pitched shrieking.
Laura, herself, seemed to come apart in the twisting forces tearing at her body
and all the spaces around her. "It's a total chaos", she thought. "There's no ordered space or
time between the present and the future. It's chaotic". She heard a
familiar voice and the noise and confusion subsided. "Laura, we made it!"
Michael looked down at her on the bed. She was breathing hard, sweating profusely,
and clutching the lamp so tightly that her hand was shaking and her knuckles
were white. "We're back home". She turned and looked up at his face.
"Good grief, that was like a train wreck"!
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